November Rain
by Okami Red
Summary: Julia is visited by a demon of her past. Beware! This is OLD. Be kind in your review.


A conversation between Vicious and Julia. I wrote it ummm...two years ago, so I apologize for the odd dialogues. It had just been sitting so forlornly on My Documents, looking up at me with those big puppy eyes, just asking to be loaded...I couldn't help myself. ^__^;;  
  
All worship Vicious forever!  
  
-OKR   
  
Disclaimer: Don't remind me that I don't own Cowboy Bebop! *cries and runs away*  
  
-November Rain-   
  
Rain. It had been coming down for two days straight in the torrents only a November storm front could produce. It wasn't a cool, refreshing summer rain, it was weighty, straight-down late autumn rain. For the span of those two days the street had been nearly bare,the people deciding wisely to hole up in warm houses. Finally,it seemed,the storm was lightening up; the brutal slaps of rain on her window had settled into a steady,hard tap. It was a soothing sound,so natural and fresh to someone living in the automated, concrete jungle known as "urban society."   
  
She sat on her couch, enjoying the warm, dimly-lit atmosphere of her apartment. Julia lifted the teacup to her lips and breathed in the inviting aroma of green tea. The warmth washed gently down her throat. Setting the cup down, Julia stood up. A flash of lightning caught the gold in her hair fleetingly. She bent down, picked up her teapot and cup, and began starting toward the kitchen with them, her long nightshirt flicking out behind her as she quickly began off.   
  
The dishes came down on the countertop with a quiet clink and the woman came back into the living room. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the carpeted floor. Something wasn't right.   
  
"Julia..."   
  
Julia whipped around. She knew that voice. That cold, soulless voice that reminded her of the scared feeling she'd get in a dark cellar as a little girl. This man, however, was no silly childhood fear. He was a very real, very dangerous one.   
  
As she recognized the figure in the shadow by the wall, the woman's blue eyes narrowed warningly despite the fright that nipped sharply at her brain. "You shouldn't be here, Vicious. Get out."   
  
The man stepped out of the shadows,but he seemed to carry his own personal darkness like an aura. His silver-grey hair wouldv'e indicated old age, if not for the young face it draped over like a tattered curtain and the slim, well-built body that loomed at an impressive height.   
  
"Please go." Julia was firm in her standings, but her voice was softer.  
  
Silence. He was as noiseless and brooding as ever.  
  
She tried another approach,seeing that nothing she could do would make him leave. While she was afraid of him, he had apparently no fear of her. "You wouldn't show up if you weren't looking for something. What do you want with me?" she prodded, not that she didn't already have disturbing ideas about his plans for her. How she longed for her gun at that moment...  
  
Vicious noted that she looked troubled by his presence in the room, and he frowned inwardly even as he took in the gentle curves of her body and the sheen of her sleek, golden hair that he remembered so well. Normally he drew some perverse pleasure from it when women found him imposing, but he didn't want Julia to feel that. Why was he thinking this? Maybe ties were still too deep to sever just yet for Vicious. He didn't know. His thought was interrupted by Julia's voice.  
  
"What do you want, Vicious?" the blonde woman repeated.   
  
He thought for a scant moment. "To talk."   
  
Julia was wary. "About what?"   
  
The syndicate member's gaze never broke. He discreetly drew his cape aside just enough for the hilt of his katana to catch the faint light. Julia caught his do-or-die message. "Just to talk," he replied quietly.  
  
Silence. Finally,Julia drew her eyes from his threatening blade,walked to the kitchen counter,picked up the teapot,and poured two cups of steaming water. Did she have a choice? One of the little china glasses she held for herself in two slender fingers; the other she gave to Vicious. The warmth emanating from the surface of it felt good to his reptile-cold hands. Vicious took a short swallow of his tea, though not seeming to appreciate it in the same way Julia had only a moment ago.   
  
Julia sat herself on a chair at a table, and Vicious took it as an unspoken invitation to do the same. Silence again.   
  
She was forced to break it once again, as one could never expect Vicious to speak first. Her fingers gathered themselves around the teacup. "Just so you know...I can't -- I won't go through this with you again. It's useless. Wer'e over, Vicious."   
  
"Do you remember," began Vicious quietly,ignoring Julia's comment. "the times we would have?"  
  
The young woman smiled faintly in spite of the circumstances. "It seems so long ago now." The smile widened a bit. "The bar...and Annie's shop...our missions together. We were..." She searched for the words.  
  
"Younger," Vicious finished for her, taking another sip of the tea.  
  
Julia looked up, still smiling slightly. "Yes...younger. And reckless. Especially Spike." And Julia knew at that instant that she had made a mistake.  
  
As whenever he thought of Spike, Vicious went into his own realm of revenge. His eyes were like a wolf's as he turned that sickening name over in his mind. He felt the hatred course into his blood like a slow-killing venom injected afresh. His sword hand itched to grasp the hilt of his katana and stain its blade crimson, but he stopped himself,reminding himself that soon - so soon he could almost taste it - the sweet hour of revenge would come.   
  
Julia looked hard at him,watching him almost visibly feeding his rage for this one man, Spike Spiegel. Her look grew stern. "Why do you hate him so much?" she asked abruptly, though her gaze remained locked. "You were friends once - best friends. Why can't you forgive and move on? The past is the unchangeable past."   
  
Vicious's eyes narrowed, and his grip tightened on the china cup. "Do you really think it's that easy?" he muttered. "That I can just forgive and forget?  
  
"It's because of him. He was the Red Dragon's golden child. Mao loved him like a son, but I knew he always was disliking of me. He managed to show the leaders,all of them,how he stayed one step ahead of me in everything. He humiliated me all the way. Spike Spiegel was permitted everything that I was ever denied. I tolerated that because he was my friend, or so I thought. Then...he took you away. He took you, Julia!" His hands were quivering in hot fury,gripping ever-tighter on the cup. "You were mine! I had you! And then that idiot had to come along and take you away beind my back!"   
  
A sharp crack silenced Vicious. Prickling pain spread quickly around the side of his face. He focused sidelong on the woman whose hand had struck him,but now his pale-blue eyes were expressionless.   
  
Julia's lips were pulled in a taut line, and her eyes were burning embers. "How dare you speak of me like a possession," she snapped rebukingly. "Don't come here uncalled for and start speaking of me like a dog to be owned. Our relationship was over years ago, Vicious. I do not belong to you."  
  
"What about Spike?" The inquiry was a quiet one, spoken in dark tone. Julia was taken aback by this sudden question, and her face went blank. Lifting his hand from the reddening wound on his face to look at it ruefully, Vicious continued. "Do you love him? If he had said what I just said to you, would you have struck him?"  
  
The woman was silent at this. She looked at the floor,and in that moment, Vicious read her actions like a book. "I see," he replied to the unspoken answer. Julia looked up into Vicious's eyes, and was surprised to see what she did. The hard, cold, icyness had faded somewhat into the background, and the hurt, hate, and obession he had nursed and grown into a festering, bleeding wound within his soul for so long was bared open for only that second that she looked. Pity hit her like a bullet to the heart. For years she had thought of him as an unapproachable, sullen, vengeful demon... Now she saw him for the agonizing, ruined man he was.   
  
Then and there, she realized that it was all her fault. She had driven a fence between two friends, and now they were paying penance for her sin.  
  
Then and there, she was sorry.   
  
Sorry for leaving him.   
  
Sorry for starting all this hatred between friends.   
  
Sorry for everything.   
  
Vicious had already gotten to his feet,and the unfeeling darkness was back in his eyes. The demon in him had surfaced once more. He looked down at her, then turned away. Their strange meeting was apparently over.  
  
"Wait," bade Julia quietly.   
  
He stopped.   
  
"Why did you come tonight after so long only to talk? Why not before?"   
  
The syndicate agent was silent a moment, as though thoughtful. Then he gave a small, grim smile. "I wanted to see you one last time."   
  
She looked at him questioningly.   
  
"You'll never know how beautiful I think you look tonight," he said.   
  
A thought struck her at his strange choice of words. "Your'e not going to..."  
  
"Suicide?" He offered a mirthless chuckle. "Odd thing to say of a man who died so long ago."  
  
"Vicious..."   
  
But he had vanished back into the shadows, with only the quiet closing of a door as a grim farewell. She walked to the front door and looked through the screen out into the rain. Gone, as she had thought.   
  
Another savage bellow of thunder, and the sky cried cold tears in a new-spawned torrent of rain.  
  
She hated these November rains.   
  
----------  
  
Vicious's solemn figure stood on the sidewalk just outside the apartment building. The driving rain broke all around him as he walked off. He knew he would come back in a day or two and threaten her into beginning phase one of his vengeance. He hadn't said anything of it tonight because he simply didn't want to. This night was the last time he would ever speak peacefully with his past love. He had felt she owed him that much.  
  
Casting a final look behind him at Julia's window on the top floor, his cold grin was a mixture of devil's ambition and faded ruefulness. "I am sorry for what is going to happen to you, but this must come to an end. You are the key to ending all our pains forever. The pain will stop, when you, dear Julia,will die. What must be done shall be done."  
  
-----------  
  
DEVILS AND ANGELS, SAINTS AND SINNERS  
  
COWBOY BEBOP   
  
Well...like it? Hate it? Review, people, and tell me what you think! Nice reviewers make me shiny like tinfoil! I even like constructive criticism! For the sake of Jerry the Rubber Duckie, R&R! 


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